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I hear a lot of wrestling fans clamoring for the return of the Attitude Era in the WWE, when Stone Cold Steve Austin’s beer-swilling and middle-finger-flashing mayhem reigned supreme, bra-and-panties matches seemed to happen on a titillatingly regular basis, you had porn stars and sex addicts as actual character gimmicks, and not a week would go by without DeGeneration-X finding some douchey new way to shock us.

Bring back the Attitude Era, they say. Get rid of today’s PG-approved storylines and content!

I recently came across the actual 2014 investor report for the WWE here. I’m still digesting it, to be honest, but some things just jumped out at me, and made me believe that for everything the WWE is doing right these days in being socially-savvy and attentive to its audience, we will probably never see the Attitude Era again.

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1. Content will have to be smart, not shocking.

The WWE’s core audience today are the 50+ year-old baby boomers and flower children. They’re the single largest age segment, at almost 4 in 10 viewers. Despite the recent thrust for PG-friendly content, less than 1 in 5 are kids or young teens.

Surprisingly, almost 40% of viewers are female. So we probably shouldn’t expect too much blood, lewdness, or foul language – yes, it has to be intelligent and mature content, but not shocking and titillating.

Especially since today’s millennial market – despite having lower purchasing power than ever before, at least for the US ones – will be the cornerstone of growth, at just over 1 in 5 viewers. They have a very idealistic, ambitious set of values and world view, and will likely not appreciate content as degrading or as shock-core as before.

Are we going to see the return of crotch chops and Jerry Lawler squealing over jello lingerie matches? Most likely not. Sorry D-X fanboys. The age of puppies ain’t coming back.

2. Big growth ambitions means they can’t slice small

They’re calling 2011-2014 as “Investing in the Future” years, investing in content and infrastructure, particularly in their movie-production arm and the WWE Network.

But they’re being very specific in declaring 2015 onwards as a return to growth levels comparable to the Attitude years.

The WWE is smart; they know that they grew back in the late 90s by stealing the young adult male demographic away through more mature content, storylines, and characters that were a huge departure from the traditionally cartoony pre-Attitude Era WWE, where wrestling plumbers and garbagemen were actually a thing.

They can’t re-achieve that same ambition in today’s pop culture environment simply by catering to their existing loyal audience to increase their consumption value per capita. I don’t see today’s 50 year old daddy spending on eight more “Viper” t-shirts just because they look cool. The whole TapouT aesthetic just doesn’t work for that segment.

A growth vision this large can only be fueled by aggressive acquisition of a new mass audience – and that means we probably won’t see too much insider, meta programming epics in the coming year.

WWE doesn’t have the luxury of an HBO or Netflix, who know they’re creating content for mostly well-to-do, well-educated viewers, letting them go as intelligent as they want. So if we’re hoping for complex Sopranos-style storylines, we’re probably not going to get them.

3.Content will have to carry across cultural barriers

The biggest key to this aggressive growth ambition? WWE Network roll-out to the rest of the world, particularly calling out Malaysia and Thailand in SEA as key growth markets.

It’s absolutely critical, since US TV rights revenues are pretty much a fixed source of revenue. International revenues are now a bigger part of their business than domestic live events.

Of course there’s a higher operating cost involved to stage these, but given that their critical KPI’s seem to be revenue growth rather than profitability, that shouldn’t be a deterrent.

That means content will have to be meaningful and comprehensible across multiple cultures; the WWE will be making sure that they build storylines and characters around universally-relatable, broadly-relevant themes and tensions. They can’t write for the traditional US audience alone.

This matters especially since social is such a key part of WWE’s forward plan.

Content has to be shareable, and by default that pretty much means it will have to be relatively safe. You’re not going to get a lot of conversations happening across platforms if its stuff that’s generally best hidden in brown paper bags or behind incognito browser windows.

4.Casual fans are king; the smark audience won’t matter.

Only about 1 in 10 US fans are hard-core passionate fans – these are probably the smarks like me who surf the dirt sheets and Internet message boards for the latest news and gossip.

The rest aren’t as involved, and it seems that their strategic value consumers are the casual ones.

Unlike a typical Game of Thrones fan drooling over every detail and nuance in each episode, they may miss episodes here and there, and won’t be as fastidious about catching up with developments on the WWE’s other platforms on what they missed.

Will we see more smarky “breaking the fourth wall” moments like CM Punk’s infamous pipebomb segment, or the 3-year-long chase and reconciliation between “Macho Man” Randy Savage and Elizabeth?

I doubt it.

Content will have to be bite-sized and punchy, more appetite-whetting than deeply-involving. Sadly, it will most likely have to cater to the lowest common denominator; more Friends than Breaking Bad.

Content can’t be TOO clever, since a large bulk of the market aren’t as hard-core invested as the smark crowd, so don’t expect storylines to be too long, complex, or drawn-out. Expect a lot of snappy resolutions and pocket storytelling.

5.The next big star of the WWE has to be a conventionally-acceptable face – and that’s good for Roman Reigns and Dolph Ziggler.

A common thread among today’s internet wrestling crowd is that John Cena is tired, over-exposed, and stale. Elevate new faces! Down with Cena! Feature our internet darling instead!

But one thing I noticed about the investor report – they use Cena a hell of a lot throughout the deck. You wanna know why? Because’s he’s presentable.

John Cena is damn handsome.

Seems like if you want to be the face of the WWE across all its forums, you need to look broadly acceptable, relatively clean-cut, and well-put-together by mainstream standards – not too rebellious, not too non-conformist. That didn’t bode well for CM Punk, and probably not for guys like Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, Bray Wyatt, or even internet-darling Daniel Bryan either.

To be honest? They look weird.

I love Daniel Bryan, but he looks like a hippie activist .

No wonder Roman Reigns has the rocket strapped to his ass. He’s a good face to insert into corporate decks, and is an incredibly presentable face for public relations.

So you know who stands to benefit the most from this thinking? WWE may be over-pushing the hell out of Roman Reigns to eventually be the face of the company, but they are not going to overlook their greatest existing asset, presentation-wise: The Show-Off, Dolph Ziggler.

I mean seriously, we all have a little bit of a man-crush on him, right??

More importantly, they’re both good guys. They seem affable, approachable, and benign. They may not necessarily be as complex as Dean Ambrose’s “Lunatic Fringe” persona, or as intriguing as Bray Wyatt’s cult leader “Eater of Worlds” schtick, but that’s a good thing for them.

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So in summary, the big theme for WWE in 2015 will be intelligent content to fuel global growth and get casual fans more invested in the product. That doesn’t sound like Attitude Era programming to me.

1. Content will have to be smart, not shocking.
2. Big growth ambitions mean they can’t slice too small.
3. Content will have to transcend cultural barriers.
4. Casual fans are king; smarks don’t matter.
5. The next big faces will have to be conventional, popularly-conventional faces, and that’s a good thing for good guys like Roman Reigns and Dolph Ziggler.

A majority of viewers are relatively more intelligent and mature, but will have sensitivities towards extreme content, so expect a moderate sophistication of content moving forward. Lapsed fans are one of the greatest opportunities for growth, so expect a healthy mix of throwback/nostalgia-driven content to balance off investments in newer, younger rising stars, the most important of which will be Roman Reigns and Dolph Ziggler.

They will invest in strongly building up the international markets, both through more live events and Network roll-out, Southeast Asia included. So expect content that translates better and less problematically across cultures; edgy and controversial doesn’t seem like it will work.

Sorry, folks. No “Rated R Superstar” live sex celebrations in the offing.

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I’ve been a wrestling fan for 22 years, and an honorary member of the Baby Oil Boys’ Club since 2010.

I hate it when people dismiss wrestling as being “fake.” You know what’s fake? “Gossip Girl.” Now THAT shit is fake. Go drown in your Haagen Daaz, women. I also hate it when they deride it as a showcase for “sweaty men in spandex rolling around in each other’s arms.”

There’s a technical term for that, you know. It’s called a gogoplata.

Kinky AND sweaty!

Growing up, I wanted to be a wrestler. I dreamt of being the first ever Filipino WWE wrestling champion, the Manila Mauler. So every once in a while, I tune in to this YouTube channel called “How To Wrestle,” and try to pick up tips on how to pull off the fabulous, death-defying stunts I get to see the likes of Dolph Ziggler, CM Punk, and Daniel Bryan do on a weekly basis.

It’s cool stuff, but I really do feel sorry for these guys.

They claim to be professional wrestlers. But how seriously are we supposed to take their lessons, when one dude looks like Seth Rogen’s midget doppelganger…

The World’s Least Intimidating Hairy Man

…and the other looks like Daughtry?

The World’s Least Intimidating Bald Man

I’m happy they’re out there pursuing their dreams in such a public way. More power to you, guys, and may you be fruitful and multiply.

But seriously. If we’re setting the bar this low for professional wrestling trainers, then I might as well be publishing tutorials of my own.

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It was 1997, and DeGeneration-X was riding roughshod all over World Wrestling Entertainment.

They had exiled longtime fan favorite Bret “The Hitman” Hart over to WCW, along with his real-life brothers-in-law, “The British Bulldog” Davey Boy Smith, and Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart.

They formally ushered in the legendary “Attitude” era that transformed the Monday Night Wars.

They brought edginess, danger, and ultimately a touch of mainstream acceptability to professional wrestling, which to that point had always been seen as a realm for kid fantasy, what with all the over-the-top cartoonish characters that had grown to populate the industry at the time – a wrestling garbageman, a man who claimed to hail from the future and had a jetpack to prove it, Doink the Clown, and a slow-witted Ugandan savage who needed the audience to “coach” him to roll his opponent onto his back before pinning him.

It had been that kind of world.

“The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels & the newly renamed “Triple H” Hunter Hearst Helmsley, together with their muscular female valet Chyna, turned everyone on their ears with their degenerate ways and crotch-chopping antics. They were assholes to the highest degree, less socially-acceptable than a jelly-covered grandma, and lived to torment authority to its absolute limit. They introduced “Suck It!” into the popular lexicon of 12-year olds, and made dry-humping, thong underwear, and gay jokes part of wrestling legend.

They were irreverent, insufferably too-cool-for-school, and knew they were just That Damn Good. Nobody could do a thing to stop them.

Shawn Michaels had even posed for Playgirl Magazine, with nothing but a WWE Championship Belt to cover up his Little Showstopper.

Enter Sergeant Slaughter, an All-American Hero who stood for justice, discipline, and integrity. He even had a GI Joe action figure of his own to back up how upstanding and righteous and all-around awesome he was.

His plan? Fracture DeGeneration-X from within, by forcing Shawn Michaels to lay his coveted European Championship on the line against his own stablemate and real-life best-friend Triple H in the main event of Monday Night Raw.

Growing up, my absolute favourite wrestler was Bret “The Hitman” Hart. And that meant I was hardwired to loathe his real-life nemesis, “The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels – the man who screwed him out of his final WWE World Championship, and ran him out of the company for 13 long and bitter years.

He was cocky, he was arrogant, and a notorious prima donna. No surprise that he even posed for Playgirl magazine, with nothing more than a championship belt to cover his “Little Showstopper.”

But it’s hard to hold a grudge against greatness, and over the years, I don’t think any pro wrestler has ever been able to combine the complete package that ol’ HBK did.

He could fly – Ric Flair never could.

He could talk – Bret Hart never could.

He could put on a technical showcase – Hulk Hogan never could.

He could go balls-out hardcore – The Rock never could.

He could do everything that a wrestler could dream of doing, wrestle any style that was called for with any opponent, and mould it all into a character that the crowd, whether they were booing him or cheering him, would always invest in emotionally.

It’s been 8 years since Shawn last held a World Heavyweight title, yet he’s never failed to put on the best match of the night, the true Main Event for anyone in attendance.

It’s sad that he lost his retirement match against the Undertaker at WrestleMania 26. He could have kept on going forever. But as he rightfully said, he’s a man of 44 years, no longer a child, and his family needs him more than we as his fans ever could.

Shawn Michaels is truly the greatest professional wrestler of all time. The Showstopper. The Icon. The Main Event. All his nicknames hold true, and we are all blessed to have been able to play witness to his legend.

And let’s not forget – we once had to live without him for four painful years, when a broken back he suffered at the hands of the Undertaker in a Casket Match forced him out of wrestling until his body could heal itself from the torque and trauma it had absorbed through the years. That was hard enough.

I’m sad to see him go once more, this time for good, but proud to have danced to the beat of his Sweet Chin Music.

That’s why it blew my mind to see him on WWE Raw last week, holding guest host duties, and singing, in his usual impassioned, imploring manner, the greatest, most iconic theme songs of today’s generation of WWE superstars.

Bret “The Hitman” Hart. The greatest hero of my childhood, and the man who made me believe back when I was just a fat little prepubescent Superstar that invoking the excellence you wished yourself to be was the first big step in actually achieving it.

Even a career-ending concussion from a misplaced Goldberg thrust kick, a subsequent stroke from a biking accident, and the tragic in-ring death of his youngest brother Owen couldn’t stop him from coming home and making peace before the entire WWE Universe.

Truly the best there is, the best there was, the best there ever will be.

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Big beefy Superstars such as myself love wrestling, mainly because we’re too chunky for other sports.

I have always rooted for the badasses of the sport like Randy Orton, Edge, D-X, Stone Cold Steve Austin, the original nWo, and the entire Evolution stable – they were cocky, they were legitimate assholes, but they could always bring the business in the ring.

John Cena, when he first made the transition from being a plain-vanilla white boy in his “Ruthless Aggression” character to a full-on Vanilla Ice clone with his battle raps, was one of my favorites back in the day. He was white as shit, but carried himself like a dawg.

This was the first battle rap that really caught me – him taking on the Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle in one of the funniest skits I’ve seen. Kurt Angle, in particular, was hilarious, with his dig on how he couldn’t believe he actually found someone in WWE who was even whiter than him (it’s true, it’s true).

But the ultimate battle rap was when the Big Show challenged the Doctor of Thuganomics to a showdown, and got completely and thoroughly punked out.

Best lines of the night:

You need to hit them situps too
You ain’t exactly the leanest
Forget seeing me bro
You can’t even see your own penis!

And mine is bigger than your finger
It’s as big as your whole head
You think I’m comin’ up short?
That’s not what yo’ momma said!

BE AMAZED!!! as Y2J explodes at the assholery of a crowd of hundreds who wouldn’t let him get into his Outrageously Expensive Jerichomobile 5000.

DROP YOUR JAW!!! at the heroism and courage of The Man as he defends his dignity, chastity, and cool beans leather jacket from the unwashed plebeian masses shouting “You’re a disgrace to Canadians, you mo’ fo’!”

When I grow up, I want to be just like Chris Jericho. He is a man of principles, of bravery, of supreme awesomeness. God save you, Y2J. Break the walls down, and break the jaws of all those who refuse to be… saved.